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Monday, March 7, 2016

Eagles To Host Russia, Italy In Northern California

UPDATE: U.S.A. Rugby confirmed the news this morning.

For the second year in a row the Eagles are headed back to Northern California. TIAR has been able to learn through multiple channels that the U.S. will take on Italy in San Jose on June 18th and Russia in Sacramento on June 25th. The matches will take place once again at Avaya Stadium and Bonney Field. Last year the U.S. played Samoa in San Jose as part of a double-header that featured Canada and Japan in the first match. They then played Japan in Sacramento with Fiji vs. Samoa the preceding match. Both of those double-headers were a part of the Pacific Nations Cup, which this year's matches obviously will not.

We've also been able to learn, once again through multiple channel including some overseas, that the U.S. had been trying to play Scotland but that the Scots backed out. Scotland is going on a two match tour to Japan on June 18th and 25th so playing the U.S. on June 11th would have make a lot of sense (Canada is hosting Japan that day). Now the U.S. are looking at filling in a third opponent but it will be difficult with nearly every team tied up that day.

Take the jump to read more.The U.S. could either try to play Canada after the international window has closed or some other opponent. They could also try to line-up a fixture against a team like the Barbarians or some other select side. A match against a club team is also not out of the question. The logical thing would be to play Scotland but if the parties involved aren't willing it makes that difficult.

Having Italy and Russia on the schedule isn't much of a surprise and has been noted earlier. Canada will play Italy in Toronto on June 26th, a week after they play the Eagles. The week before Italy are in San Jose they play Argentina. Russia play Canada on June 18th in Calgary.

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What do you think? Are you excited tests are headed back to Northern California?

This will be the Eagles' 3rd consecutive year playing in Sacramento. They played at Bonney Field in the 2014 PNC beating Canada 38-35. It was an important win since the USA had not beaten Canada since 2009.